Simulacrum
by Aachren
Summary: Sometimes faking it is more like stealing.
1. Chapter 1

He remembers being a young man and naïve. He can hear his own voice in evidence, "Camelot is built on a foundation of trust and loyalty." He knows better now.

Nowhere in his palace is free of this lesson. His chambers ring with a love that was not enough. The delicate throne next to his own mocks his decision to elevate a serving girl to queen. The training field no longer affords the dissolution of memory in duty and exercise, but is a monument to how a man may so easily lie in his master's face. Its silence mimics the silence of the men who knew, who knew and never said a word in warning to their king.

The private dining room near the royal apartments stink of the hate and fear of a sister enmeshed in machinations beyond her control, but of her own instigation. His council room, despite the round table he had installed shortly after his coronation, still reminds him of the later days of his father's reign when the hate of magic almost destroys Camelot. The lies he was told by all the people who should have loved him enough to tell him the truth chase him through the stairwells and across the courtyard. Only up in a lonely tower is a place void of the bite of betrayal.

He cannot go there. The occupant of the tower is his friend and too great an allure. Betrayal is the lot of any man who trusts. Even kings, especially kings. It is a lesson too painfully won to be forgotten. He knows heading to the one man, wizard, friend that has demonstrated his devotion over and over again will undermine his heart-walls.

Despite the ever-growing distance between them, he knows that his friend is the bedrock of his dream for Albion. Sometimes, he imagines that the only reason that he can manage another day in traitorous Camelot is the knowledge that there is a wizard that cannot be disappointed. That would be the ultimate betrayal. He cannot, will not do it. Betrayal will not breed more from him.

So he stalks down quiet corridors in the dark. The empty dungeons receive visits. The great hall echoes with his footsteps. He inspects the sleeping lower town. The raucous sounds spilling from the tavern turn his path towards it. Peering through the windows, he longs for the simple camaraderie of their lives. One man claps his neighbor on the shoulder. A memory or two flood back and his tread starts towards that upper tower and friendship.

Slipping through the hidden gate from the lower town to the castle, he passes close to the training field. On the broad expanse of grass, unexpectedly, stands a small figure. Completely draped in an expansive cloak of his own Pendragon red and preternaturally still, it captures the king's attention. He is afraid to call out; afraid it, whatever it is, will just disappear.

He slowly walks closer, close enough to touch. He reaches out his hand to place it on a slim shoulder, but halts with his hand awkwardly in the air as it turns towards him. All he sees at first is the limning of moonlight on a delicate, high-cheeked face. Her eyes are in shadows and he cannot see them, but knows that they are the deep, deep blue of the stones in his queen's, no, his mother's crown.

His fingers under the smooth curve of her chin press upwards to bring her full face into the light. Not only are her eyes a tantalizing blue, the arch of her mouth is full and deeply pink. Dark, dark hair tumbles around her face and curls silkily against his fingers as he slides them along her jaw and down her swan neck. The smell of her rises towards him from the bodice of the low-necked midnight velvet gown and has the sharp 'tck' of magic in the back of his throat.

He isn't afraid; her magic feels like the tower occupant's. He presses his lips to hers.


	2. Chapter 2

The heavy wood door of the tower swings open. "Your beloved…king is asleep."

He does not look at her. It is as if he thinks that if he does not see her, then she does not exist, then he is not to blame. The papers on his desk receive a shuffling sort of straightening. He adjusts the glassware on the bench littered with vials, stands and a brazier. He swallows like a man facing his doom.

"Come here."

She does not move, just taunts, "He was sated. I made his sleep peaceful."

"Come here." This time, he commands. Demands.

He stands stock still, forcing the tousled young woman to walk closer. The corner of her bruised mouth lifts sardonically, as she tilts her head back to stare into his frozen face, his cold blue eyes. His knuckles wipe the smear off her lower lip, tugging slightly. Her triumph twists across her face into something mocking and derisive.

Disgust writhes up from his gut. Loathing crawls across his shoulders and neck. "Slut," growls up out of his chest. It catches in his throat. Like it hurts.

One slim brow arches towards her ebony curls. "I'm merely as I was made. As you made me." A pink tongue wets her rosebud mouth.

She stiffens. His elegant fingertips sink into the clear, white, beard-roughened flesh of her breast. He trembles; she trembles. A heartbeat thrums through them. They sway together. Leaning into each other. Seeking.

They sway apart. The tension snaps.

She slumps. She falls.

He stumbles back and back and back. Pain, from the stone wall he finds behind him, courses across his skull and down his back. His struggle for escape ends.

His fingers convulse around a glass globe. Inside, red, red fluid sloshes, swirls. He shakes. Knuckles whiten. He presses the sphere to his mouth. He shudders.

He cannot stop the tears that roll down his cheeks. They seep into the corners of his lips. The sweet saltiness tastes strange with the bile welling up in his throat. Guilt and ecstasy uncomfortably roil together in his belly. The heat they create knifes through that most traitorous of organs. His shattered, hopeless heart breaks and remakes itself once again.

The only witness stares up at the ceiling; lying in a heap of midnight velvet, tangled yarn hair and gleaming, beautifully varnished maple limbs. Her eyes, cabochon cut sapphires, stay dry.


End file.
